Traveling to Karimnagar some 150 km's from the Hyderabad was itself an experience. Lush green rice fields rushed by my window and college students chattering endlessly and cranky children jostling for space inside the bus.
The Karminagar Film Society (KAFISO) organised a two day workshop for film society organisers on 8-9 November, 2008. The Karminagar film society is a success story in time when most of film society around the country are slowly going defunct. It is founded and run by few creative individuals, it enjoys the patronization of the district government and to top it all, it has its own building for screenings, which is quite rare.
Film societies in India had an early start way back in 1939 with the starting of Amateur Film Society in Mumbai (Bombay) and Satyajit Ray's Calcutta Film Society in 1947. They provided an opportunity for watching great cinema in the early days, however it took severe beating with availability of VHS home video and later cable television. This workshop comes at the time when the future film societies in India seems bleak.
The workshop had panel discussions on topics titled 'Promoting Film Societies in the changed scenario' 'Starting and Running a Film Society, Problem and Solutions'. Sudhir Nandgaonkar of Federation of Film Societies of India(FFSI) delivered the keynote address and talked about the importance of cinema as an art form. H.N.Narahari Rao outlined the birth and need for film societies, his talk featured clipping from the early actuals to the classic like The Battleship Potemkin, A Trip to the Moon and The Passion of Joan of Arc.
More KAFISO Workshop Photos are available on Anand's album .
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